Collection 2541 - Thomas P. Roberts Papers, 1827-1944

Creator: Roberts, Thomas P. (Thomas Paschall), 1843-1924

Provenance Note: Letters, diaries, essays, reports, printed materials and photographs created or collected
by Thomas P. Roberts were donated to Montana State University by Priscilla Thompson-Roberts,
Arlington, Virginia, on August 5, 2011.

Historical Note: William Milnor Roberts (1810-1881) was a Pennsylvania-born civil engineer who was
engaged as chief engineer for various projects in Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and
Canada. From 1857 to 1865he was in charge of the building of the Don Pedro Railway
in Brazil. After his return to the United States Roberts was engaged on important
hydraulic and railroad works, such as the improvement of the Ohio and Mississippi
rivers, the construction of the St. Louis Bridge, and the water supplies of Pittsburgh
and Philadelphia. He was also involved in surveying the route for the Northern Pacific
Railroad. He married Annie Barbara Gibson of Pennsylvania in 1837 with whom he had
six children; William Milnor Roberts, Jr. (July 7, 1838), John Bannister Gibson Roberts
(Feb. 1, 1841), Thomas Paschall Roberts (April 21, 1843), George Gibson Roberts (March
22, 1845), Annie Gibson Roberts (April 27, 1849), Richard Anderson Roberts (May 13,
1854) and Charles Watts Roberts (July 1857).

Thomas Paschall Roberts, the third son of William Milnor Roberts, worked with his
father as a civil engineer and enjoyed a lengthy career on his own in the same profession.
He grew up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and attended Dickinson and State colleges, leaving
the latter as an undergraduate in 1863 to join his father in Brazil. Following his
return to the States in the fall of 1865 he took charge of surveys in Northwestern
Pennsylvania for a projected railroad. In 1866 Roberts became principal assistant
to his father in charge of the open-channel improvement of the entire Ohio River.
From 1870 until 1884 he was engaged on or in charge of numerous railroad and waterway
surveys, including the Montana Division of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Also in
the early seventies he made a reconnaissance of the upper Missouri River from Fort
Benton to the Three Forks, his report and map of which were published by the War Department
in 1874. He surveyed the upper Monongahela River in 1875 and the Allegheny River in
1878-9. The latter half of his life was devoted almost entirely to waterway improvements
and matters relating to navigation, in which he developed an unusual interest. In
1884 he became chief engineer of the Monongahela Navigation Company an when the United
States Government purchased the company's plant in 1897, Roberts entered the service
of the United States Engineer Department, retaining local charge of the Monongahela
River improvements during the greater part of their reconstruction period until 1912,
thereafter serving as consulting engineer in an advisory capacity in the United States
Engineer Office at Pittsburgh. In 1889 he became interested in the proposed building
of a canal between Lake Erie and the Ohio River near Pittsburgh, and in 1890 Governor
Beaver appointed him chief engineer of the Ship Canal Commission of Pennsylvania to
conduct the necessary surveys for determining the feasibility of the scheme. After
an intensive study of the existing conditions he was in 1894 made chairman of an engineering
committee designated by the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce to make a complete survey
and prepare a report on the proposed canal as to its practicability. Roberts was a
founding member of the Engineers Society of Western Pennsylvania and maintained a
wide interest in scientific, social, and historical topics. He was particularly interested
in the causes of the Ice Age in North America and wrote both scientific studies on
the topic as well as a short novel. He married Juliette Emma Christy on June 8, 1870
and the couple had seven children: Eleanor Christy Roberts, Annie Gibson Roberts,
Juliette Paschall Roberts, Laura Milnor Roberts, Thomas Paschall Roberts Jr., James
Milnor Roberts, and Mary Brunot Roberts. Thomas Paschall Roberts died in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania on February 25, 1924.

Content Description Note: Letters, diaries, legal and financial documents, essays, reports, printed materials
and photographs, all collected or created by Thomas Paschall Roberts, make up the
bulk of this collection. The letters contain many sheets written to Thomas from his
father and other family members and friends regarding personal matters and engineering
projects, along with outgoing drafts and carbons from Thomas to colleagues and friends.
The diaries are primarily those of William Milnor Roberts while he worked in Brazil
from 1860 through 1865, but one kept by Thomas details his daily life in 1867 while
working to improve navigation on the Ohio River. Of particular interest in the collection
are the manuscript essays and reports written by Thomas and others pertaining to a
wide variety of historical, scientific, and engineering topics. One of the twelve
photographs in the collection is a formal portrait of Thomas taken on September 18,
1920, which includes his detailed, humorous account of its creation on the verso.
Some of the correspondents and creators of materials in this collection include John
Marston Goodwin and Emile Low, also prominent civil engineers. Topics include the
formation and operation of the Lake Erie and Ohio River Ship Canal Commission, the
Monongahela Navigation Company, the Northern Pacific Railroad, and the construction
of canals, locks, railroads and other engineering projects in the United States and
Brazil.

NEW: Scanned images of selected documents are now available for selected folders. Look
for the underlined blue type in folder title headings for the links.

Series 1: Letters, 1857-1944

Letters, mostly received by Thomas P. Roberts (TPR) in the course of his professional
career, along with some family exchanges. Early letters dated from 1857 to 1863 are
from family members, including TPR's mother, uncle, brother, and father, William Milnor
Roberts. These letters pertain to family matters and personal reflections on the war
and its causes. Of particular interest is the letter from TPR's brother, John B. G.
Roberts, who attended a funeral in Washington, D. C. in 1861 and mentions meeting
Abraham Lincoln. Postwar letters from 1866 to 1879 are mostly from William Milnor
Roberts to various parties concerning engineering projects, including the survey for
the intended route of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Letters dated 1881 and beyond
are from a variety of engineers and businessmen to TPR, including John Marston Goodwin
and Eban Brewer. Rough drafts and carbon copies of outgoing letters from TPR cover
a wide variety of topics, including family matters, engineering problems, and the
naming of the engineering building at Montana State University for his father. The
most recent letters concern Roberts descendants. All have been chronologically arranged.

Series 2: Diaries, 1860-1867

Five small manuscript diaries created by William Milnor Roberts while engaged by Brazil's
Dom Pedro II for the construction of a railroad in that country. The diaries contain
personal information as well as techincal notes on the project. The final diary, created
by WMR in 1865, is actually a small memoranda book that contains random notes composed
during his voyage back to the United States after the completion of his stay in Brazil.
The Thomas P. Roberts diary contains detailed entries of his day to day activities
in 1867, a time when he served as an assistant engineer under his father while engaged
in a comprehensive survey of the Ohio River for navigation improvement.

Series 3: Legal and financial documents, 1860-1913

Contracts, financial notes, appointment certificates, and miscellaneous financial
notes pertaining to Thomas P. Roberts or his father, William Milnor Roberts. Documents
include partnership agreements and property settlements for WMR in his Brazilian work,
court documents for lawsuits involving TPR as a witness, contracts and property statements
for TPR's personal property, and miscellaneous financial receipts for business and
personal expenses. All have been chronologically arranged, and oversize materials
removed to Box 5 have been noted.

Box 1 (cont.)

Folder 13: Legal documents, 1860-1864

January 2, 1860. Articles of agreement based on a earlier contract partnership between
William Milnor Roberts, Robert Harvey, and others concerned with the building of the
Dom Pedro II Railway in Brazil.

August 31, 1864. Balance sheet for the Firm Roberts/Harvey, handwritten

Series 4: Essays and reports, 1880-1944

Manuscript essays and reports composed by Thomas P. Roberts and others. The documents
created by TPR cover a wide variety of topics, including his abiding interest in the
causes of the Ice Age and its effects in North America, local history, religion, and
engineering projects along the Ohio and Monongahela Rivers. TPR also gathered material
dealing with his family's genealogy, and even wrote a novelette about Ice Age people.
One essay, written towards the end of his life, gives TPR's views on Eienstein's theory
of relativity. Three additional essays, written by William Milnor Roberts, John Marston
Goodwin, and Emile Low, present thoughts on engineering projects in Brazil and Pennsylvania.
The essays have been arranged in chronological order, with those by TPR preceding
the last three created by others.

Series 5: Printed materials, 1841-1937

Printed reports, pamphlets, broadsides, and newspaper clippings written by Thomas
P. Roberts and others, collected by TPR or his descendants. Many of the materials
in this series were either written by TPR or mention him and concern engineering projects
such as the Lake Erie and Ohio River Ship Canal, the navigation exploitation of the
Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, railroad construction, and the general topic of
early American civil engineering. The first seven folders contain offprints of journal
articles or pamphlets written by TPR. The following folders have been arranged in
alphabetical order by the name of the creators and include serial publications that
include articles written by TPR and others on the above mentioned topics. The newspaper
clippings and scrapbooks are extremely fragile and have been removed for separate
storage in oversize box 5. Photocopied surrogates are available for research use.

Box 3

Folder 1. Survey of the Monongahela River, and examination of the Louisa Fork of Sandy River.
Letter from the Secretary of War, transmitting, in compliance with the river and harbor
act of March 3, 1875, a report of Maj. W.E. Merrill, Corps of Engineers, on the survey
of the Monongahela River, &c. January 25, 1876. -- Referred to the Committee on Commerce
and ordered to be printed. Serial Set Vol. No. 1689, Session Vol. No.12. 44th Congress, 1st Session. H.Exec.Doc.
91. (Washington: GPO, 1876) [bulk of the report was written by Thomas P. Roberts and
James E. Bell to Col. W. E. Merritt.]

Folder 2. Roberts, Thomas P. The Allegheny River. [an address by T. P. Roberts entitled "The Allegheny River" to the Engineers Society
of Western Pennsylvania on February 17, 1880]

Folder 4. Roberts, Thomas P. Long Distance Transportation of Natural Gas. A Paper Read Before the Society of Engineers
of Western Pennsylvania, January 19, 1886 (Pittsburgh: the Society, 1886)

Folder 5. Roberts, Thomas P. Address on the commercial outlets of the Great Lakes, with special reference to the
proposed Lake Erie and Ohio River Ship Canal : delivered before the Chamber of Commerce
of Pittsburgh, March 27, 1893 (Pittsburgh: s.n., 1893)

Folder 8. Black, W. M. The United States Corps of Engineers and its relation to the United States Coast and
Geodetic Survey. Centennial Celebration of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey (Washington, D.C. : G.P.O., 1916)

Folder 9. American Society of Civil Engineers. Some notes on the location and construction of locks and movable dams on the Ohio
River with particular reference to Ohio River Dam No. 18 (S.l.: s.n., 1923)

Folder 11. Citizens Meetings. [broadside announcing a public hearing by the board of Directors of the Pittsburgh,
Castle Shannon and Washington Railroad on April 2, and Bethel School house April 3
to "consider and act upon the report of Thomas P. Roberts regarding various possible
expansion routes of the railroad between Castle Shannon and Finleyville."]

Folder 12. Deisler, George F. Official program and complete history, Ohio River pageant and dedication, October
19th-25th, 1929, commemorating the completion of the Ohio River canalization from
Pittsburgh to Cairo (Cincinnati: 1929)

Folder 13. Eads, James Buchanan, 1820-1887. Mississippi Jetties: : Review by James B. Eads of the report of the Board of U.S.
Engineers appointed under the act of Congress approved June 19, A.D. 1878. (Washington:
GPO, 1878), bound with U. S. Secretary of War. Letter from the Secretary of War, communicating,
in obedience to law, the report of the board of officers appointed to examine the
works in progress of construction by James B. Eads, at the mouth of the Mississippi
River. January 27, 1879. -- Referred to the Committee on Commerce and ordered to be
printed. Serial Set Vol. No. 1831, Session Vol. No.4, 45th Congress, 3rd Session, S.Exec.Doc.
49 (Washington: GPO, 1879)

Folder 22. Great Britain. War Office. General Staff. Notes on engineer work during operations, Rev. ed. (London: Harrison, 1918)

Folder 23. Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce. Committee on Rivers and Harbors.
Report of Committee on Rivers and Harbors on encroachments upon the channels of the
rivers about Pittsburgh : read at the regular meeting of the Board of Directors of
the Chamber, October 14th, 1889 (Pittsburgh : Joseph Eichbaum and Co., 1889)

Folder 24. Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce, et. al. Report of the joint commission of the Chamber of Commerce of Pittsburgh, Engineers
Society of Western Pennsylvania, Allegheny County Medical Society and Iron City Microscopial
Society on the present condition and improvement of the water supply of Allegheny
County (Pittsburgh: the Commission, 1894)

Folder 25. Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce. Lake Erie and Ohio River ship canal :organization, reports of committees, and other
papers approved by the Provisional Committee of the Chamber of Commerce of Pittsburgh,
Pa. (Pittsburgh, Pa. : James M'Millan, 1894)

Folder 7. The Monongahela Navigation Company. Second annual report of the President and managers to the Monongahela Navigation Company;
1840. also Third annual report of the President and managers to the Monongahela Navigation Company;
1841

Folder 8. The Monongahela Navigation Company. Fifth annual report of the President and managers to the Monongahela Navigation Company;
1845. also Sixth annual report of the President and managers to the Monongahela Navigation Company;
1846

Folder 9. The Monongahela Navigation Company. Eighth annual report of the President and managers to the Monongahela Navigation Company;
1848. also Ninth annual report of the President and managers to the Monongahela Navigation Company;
1849

Folder 10. The Monongahela Navigation Company. Tenth annual report of the President and managers to the Monongahela Navigation Company;
1850. also Eleventh annual report of the President and managers to the Monongahela Navigation
Company; 1851

Folder 11. The Monongahela Navigation Company. Twelfth annual report of the President and managers to the Monongahela Navigation
Company; 1852. also Thirteenth annual report of the President and managers to the Monongahela Navigation
Company; 1853

Folder 12. The Monongahela Navigation Company. Fourteenth annual report of the President and managers to the Monongahela Navigation
Company; 1854. also Fifteenth annual report of the President and managers to the Monongahela Navigation
Company; 1855

Folder 13. The Monongahela Navigation Company. Seventeenth annual report of the President and managers to the Monongahela Navigation
Company; 1857. also Eighteenth annual report of the President and managers to the Monongahela Navigation
Company; 1858

Folder 14. The Monongahela Navigation Company. Nineteenth annual report of the President and managers to the Monongahela Navigation
Company; 1859. also Twentieth annual report of the President and managers to the Monongahela Navigation
Company; 1860

Folder 15. The Monongahela Navigation Company. Twenty-first annual report of the President and managers to the Monongahela Navigation
Company; 1861. also Twenty-second annual report of the President and managers to the Monongahela Navigation
Company; 1862

Folder 16. The Monongahela Navigation Company. Thirty-Sixth Annual report of the Board of Managers of the Monongahela Navigation
Company to the stockholders : with accompanying documents, 1876 also Forty-Second Annual report of the Board of Managers of the Monongahela Navigation
Company to the stockholders : with accompanying documents, 1882

Folder 17. The Monongahela Navigation Company. Forty-Fourth Annual report of the Board of Managers of the Monongahela Navigation
Company to the stockholders : with accompanying documents, 1884 also fragment of undated "Annual report to the stockholders of the Monongahela Navigation
Co."

Folder 20. Pennsylvania. Ship Canal Commission. Report of the Ship Canal Commission of Pennsylvania to the General Assembly of 1891
respecting the feasibility of a ship canal to connect the waters of Lake Erie and
the Ohio River (Harrisburg, Pa.: Ship Canal Commission of Pennsylvania ; Erie, Pa. : Printed by
Dispatch Pub. Co., 1891)

Folder 23. United States. Army. Corps of Engineers. Pittsburgh District. Aegis of an industrial empire : or, genesis of Pittsburgh Engineer District (Pittsburgh : U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 1937)

Folder 24. U.S. Secretary of War. Prevention of damage by floods. Letter from the secretary of war, transmitting report
of the board of officers of the Corps of Engineers of the United States Army appointed
April 12, 1913, upon the most practicable and effective measures for prevention of
damage by flood to works constructed for the improvement of navigation, of interference
with interstate commerce, and other disastrous results thereof. (Washington, Govt. Print. Off., 1914)

Series 6: Photographs, 1870-1933

A formal 1912 portrait of TPR, with detailed information regarding its creation written
on the back; several views of TPR with colleagues; images of TPR's stepmother and
brother-in-law; an image possibly of the steam boat T.P. Roberts; several views of
engineering and industrial sites in Pennsylvania.

Series 7: Maps and oversize materials, 1827-1923

Manuscript and printed maps, including a detailed 1824 chart of the route of a Pennsylvania
canal and other canals and railroads. An unidentified house plan which may be that
of TPR's home details landscaping plants, and two later dated printed maps show early
automobile routes through western Pennsylvania. Fragile oversize scrapbooks and two
large printed appointment commissions are also in this series.

7. Lehhman, George M. Map showing location of proposed Lake Erie and Ohio River Canal
and connecting waterways, east of Mississippi River. Appalachian Coal Field and Iron
Ore Region.

8. Lehman, George M. Map showing the areas having the benefit of through water transportation.
The Lake Erie and Ohio River Canal at the point of the arrow would complete the chain.
It is the missing link.

9. Lehman, George M. The Lake Erie and Ohio River Canal Board ; Beaver-Mahoning-Grand
River Tourte. Drainage areas; storage reservoir on summit and line of canal as recently
proposed by the District and Division of Engineers, U.S. Army.

10. Steamer "Sprague" and Tow, 1908 [blueprint]

11. Hand drawn house plan, no date

Oversize from previous series:

12. October 25, 1889. Appointment for TPR as member of the Lake Erie and Ohio River
Ship Canal Commission [removed from Series 3]

13. October 8, 1895. Delegate appontment for TPR to attend the Western Waterways Convention
[removed from Series 3]